CO2 Dissociation in an Atmospheric Dielectric Barrier Discharge Reactor: Influence of the Power Supply Nature

Carbon dioxide is one of the primary greenhouse gases contributing to climate change and global warming and its concentration in atmosphere is continuously increasing due to the use of fossil fuels. Various strategies have been proposed to address the challenge of climate change including carbon capture and storage, carbon capture and utilization, reducing fossil fuel consumption and boosting clean and renewable energy use. Regarding CO
2
as a potentially renewable carbon source and converting it into value added fuels and chemicals offers a promising route for CO
2
reutilization while significantly inhibiting carbon emissions. There have been interest in plasma-assisted CO
2
conversion using different non-thermal plasmas due to its non-equilibrium character, low energy cost and unique ability to initiate both physical and chemical reactions at low temperatures
^1–3
. It can avoid the energy intensive processes in conventional thermal catalytic methods for CO
2
conversion due to the high stability of CO
2
molecules. The nature of power supplies is an essential parameter for the energy efficiency of the plasma process
⁴
.